Before Longfellow and his wife, Fanny, took up residence there, the house served as the headquarters of General George Washington during the Siege of Boston in 1775. When strangers knocked, asking to see the historic Revolutionary War site, Longfellow graciously showed them around.

Click here to read the article — which includes commentary from Frances Appleton Wetherell, Longfellow’s great granddaughter — and here for a re-cap of my visit to the house. –Shannon McKenna Schmidt